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Monday, July 18, 2011

A Hot Sultry Night

This blog was written by Temple Hogan.

Yeah! It’s one of those nights where nothing moves, not a leaf, not a blade of grass. The heavy air holds you prisoner in its insidious grip so you feel unable to move. You can’t breath. Your chest rises and falls rhythmically, but no air comes into your starved lungs. I look at him, a dark hulking shadows that shatters my tranquility, my sense of self. The dark, murky emotions are too much. I look at him and feel the sweat rolling between my breasts. The fan completes it arc and fans my flushed face. He has a question in his eyes, the eternal question between a man and woman on a hot summer night and you long to answer the call, but dammit, you have to write this blog so the girls in your writing group won’t think you’re a total loser.

So how to refocus your thoughts. You wipe the sweat from your upper lip, fan the back of your neck with a list of character names and pray for inspiration. In the dead of night, when there are no stars and no breeze, when you can hear yourself sweat, there is no answer, no easy out. You just have to slug along and pray whatever words you use to fill up your page will make sense to someone else.

You think about your characters, do they suffer nights like this? Do they ever feel turn off by the heat, the crying children, the bitch playing the radio too loudly next door? No, they have castles in dreamy locations, like an enchanted island in Ireland. There are no crying children and if there were, there would be a nanny, a wet nurse and various other servants to do your every bidding so when your king comes home at the end of a long hot day, you’ve just finished with a cooling, scented bath, your chores are all done, the meal is served, the children are put to their little beds. Peace reigns, so of course you have time to abandon yourself to his breathtaking lovemaking. You can think of fantastic things to do to him, but I deal with reality.

I need to finish this love scene. The dog just threw up on the floor, the temperature is rising, the barometer is doing the same. I carry a towel around with me to mop my face and between my breasts. My brain can’t come up with anything new and exciting. It’s been fried from the heat.

So what happened to those hot, sultry, summer nights when two people find each other and their mingled sweat is an aphrodisiac to their sensual longing. Reality. Excuse me while I wipe the back of my neck. I have a brilliant idea. I’ll use the weather, almost as another character, as part of the background, a motivator. Now let’s see----- It’s one of those nights where nothing moves, not a leaf, not a blade of --